MENIFEE: COUNCIL DECIDES ROMOLAND STORE CAN SELL ALCOHOL

A Romoland market will be allowed to sell beer and wine, Menifee’s City Council decided Tuesday night.

Two weeks after two business owners said planning commissioners overstepped their reach in leading a moral discussion that ultimately led to the denial of a conditional use permit, the City Council voted 5-0 to allow the soon-to-open California Ranch Grocery Market to sell alcohol to the customers it attracts to its locale along state Route 74.

“I think the process worked; the process absolutely worked,” Mayor Scott Mann said after the council overturned the first appeal of a Planning Commission decision heard in the city’s four-year history. “The Planning Commission saw it differently, and I think ultimately the right decision was made under the circumstances.”

In hindsight, Planning Commission Chairman Matt Liesemeyer said he and his colleagues may not have had all the information they needed to come to a decision. Although he said he regretted the moral tone of the discussion — much of it based on drunken-driving ramifications — the permit was legally denied because the commissioners believed that current businesses provided residents with sufficient opportunities to purchase alcohol for off-site consumption.

Only Commissioner Mark Matelko voted to allow the permit at the April 23 hearing.

However, a second look at the immediate surrounding area revealed that store owner Eyad Shalabi was within in his legal rights to offer alcohol at his store, according to a staff report.

Not only does the store not sit within 500 feet of a school, park or church, only one of three off-site consumption licenses that the state allows in the area is in use.

Although nearby Romoland Liquor Market has a license from the state, its alcohol sales are not legally permitted because it does not have a permit on file with the city, according to the staff report.

That store’s owner again asked officials to bar Shalabi’s permit because it would “adversely impact his business,” although that argument didn’t hold much water with Mann.

Mann said opening a competing store could push alcohol prices down — which he is all for.

Shalabi reiterated that alcohol sales weren’t the primary focus of his business, which he said would not be a direct competitor with Romoland Liquor.

For instance, he said meats and produce sales would take up three-quarters of his 4,000-square-foot store — which could open within three months — and that maybe four of 12 refrigerated beverage doors would hold beer and wine. Shalabi is not asking for a permit to sell the kind of hard liquor available at Romoland Liquor.

“That’s not our type of business,” Shalabi told the council. “We’re like a Winco or an Albertsons on a smaller (scale).”

He added: “(Beer and wine) is very important for us to stay in business just so we don’t lose customers because they can’t get that beer or wine in our store.”

Shalabi said that if the permit had been denied, his lease with building owner Brenda Van Dyke — who previously operated the Bargain Basket Food & Drug Outlet in that location for a decade — would have provided him the opportunity to opt out.

Van Dyke also spoke before the council, because she said any restrictions placed on her property could stymie her ability to retire on its leasing profits.

“I don’t feel that a small market should be at a disadvantage because they can’t do everything that a bigger business can,” she told the council.